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DbPhoenix
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Everything posted by DbPhoenix
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There's no rejection. Price doesn't drop more than a point until :15, and then only by a tick. Nor are there a lower low and lower high. A short would therefore be countertrend. The fact that all of this is taking place at what one thought was R at 52 is not as important as the price action. In this case, R is at 53, which is well within tolerance, since R is a zone. The short op at :29 is clearly a failure to match the previous swing high, much less make a new one. Db
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It wasn't. Which is fine. If you need that extra confirmation, wait for it. Eventually you won't need it so much. There were, after all, plenty of people who didn't make anything today. Or lost. Exactly right. Plotting S&R ahead of time will save your ass again and again. If you know that one or the other is coming up, you will be more alert as to price behavior, such as today at 52 and again at 38 then again at 52 and later at 30. If you've prepared and you're ready when the time comes, you'll know what to do. If you haven't and you're not, you won't. As for the first long, remember that the SLs and DLs and TLs are all essentially training wheels. S&R are trumps. If price hits one or the other and gives you the appropriate signal, then set aside the lines and go with the tests. You'll know real quick whether or not you did the right thing. And if price instead plunges through S or R and you're looking at a continuation, you won't be freaked out and will instead know what to do (which doesn't include sitting there, wringing your hands, thinking I Failed Again). Excellent work. Db
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Turns out there were reports today at 1000. Good thing I didn't know that Db
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Just to wrap it up for posterity. Call it Trading in 180 Minutes this time.
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Just saw your note in the other thread about the short. Perfectly legitimate, and worth a few points. However, when you hit S like that, and tested it, the test trumps whatever SLs you have drawn. At that point, you have to consider an SAR at around 41. If you had, you would have earned up to 15 pts off these trades. And if you'd hung around, the short off the midpoint at 1125 was an easy entry and good for another 10+, but that would be longer than 90m. Db
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You don't say where you took your first long, but I assume it was the test of S at 38. That this is correct becomes evident as soon as you make your entry given the violent upmove at that point. I was hoping you'd see that hinge. It was one of the more interesting hinges I've seen in a long time. Actually, three hinges. But anyone not knowing what a hinge is or what to look for would most likely be "nervous". You also picked up on the S level that the hinge provided for the subsequent hinge before the BO. Notice here that you have fakeouts both above and below your first hinge. These lead to a follow-on hinge (which would not likely be seen by anybody not following this in RT). That BOs to a little TR which in turn segues into a third hinge which has a fakeout below (to S) and a BO to the upside which takes you to the mega midpoint of the macro range. As for my dotted blue SL, you can if you like ignore breaks which turn into springboards. This can give you a better idea of what the genuine SL is. Or you can at least keep it in the back of your mind, particularly if you have difficulty drawing a new SL. One more thing. You could have taken the first RET after the initial runup, but you would have had to exit. At that point, you'd want to wait to see if you got (a) a higher low or (b) a bounce off the midpoint of that rally which, in this case, was 44. If you then got a higher low off that, which you did, that would make for a legitimate long. If you had taken it and had been tempted to exit at the break of what would have been your SL, notice where the downside fakeout finds S. Db
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See how price is reacting to the test of S? Db
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I was wondering if anybody was going to pick up on this. But you may have already gotten your test a half hour ago Db
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It really doesn't matter what kind of bar one uses as long as he understands that it's all about price movement, not what he chooses to display it. The problem with bars and candles is that the beginner/trader starts thinking about this bar is longer than that bar, or higher, or it's red or it's green, or it's inside or outside, or it looks like a pin or whatever. None of that is in any way relevant to the continuous flow of price. If one can't get past any of that, I suggest he use as small a bar interval as possible so that he can stop focusing on the bars and focus instead on what the bars are illustrating. Once he accomplishes the latter, he'll find that whatever he uses to illustrate the price movement is largely a matter of convenience. Db
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A man can't spend years at one thing and not acquire a habitual attitude towards it quite unlike that of the average beginner. The difference distinguishes the professional from the amateur. It is the way a man looks at things that makes or loses money for him in the speculative markets. The public has the dilettante's point of view toward his own effort. The ego obtrudes itself unduly and the thinking therefore is not deep or exhaustive. The professional concerns himself with doing the right thing rather than with making money, knowing that the profit takes care of itself if the other things are attended to. A trader gets to play the game as the professional billiard player does -- that is, he looks far ahead instead of considering the particular shot before him. It gets to be an instinct to play for position. Jesse Livermore
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Actually, that's Mark Helweg (allegedly). Db
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I posted charts every morning last week in the TIF thread. There are similar charts posted in previous weeks, months, and years. There are also "foresight" charts posted in the TR thread, which was begun a year before the TIF thread. "Trading what see" isn't an option since this is all based on S&R. If I don't know where the S&R are, then I don't know if we're trending or rangebound, and if I don't know that, it's all just a guess. Db
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To illustrate what I was referring to above, and going back to the beginning of this non-directional mess, here are longer-term charts of the NQ showing the "macro" ranges we're dealing with. Nothing sophisticated. Just lines and boxes for the simple folk .
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Since the only people interested in this will be the suckers, does it really matter? (Ooo, look at all the pretty colors...) Db
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This is where the prep becomes important. Price was sitting in the middle of a dinky little TR before the open, then shot up straight to R at 48, so, yes, a short would have been justifiable. It then dropped down into a zone that had been established since early on the 17th, so, again, yes, a long would have been justifiable. But to be prepared for all this, one has to have located those levels ahead of time. Otherwise, it just looks like price is reversing here or reversing there for no reason at all. Note also that when price rebounds, it again finds R at 48, then retraces, then finds R at 48 yet again before breaking through and heading toward the higher R at 53-4. And, on a side note, everything comes more or less to a halt at that point, at 1100. So, yes, one should wait until price approaches S or R or a midpoint, but one has to have determined ahead of time where those levels and zones are. You are welcome, of course, to post your anticipated S/R levels before the market opens. Db
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OTOH, concerning oneself with a "decline" in the aforesaid willingness presupposes a pre-existing willingness. IOW, if the beginner isn't even willing to step up to the plate, there's nothing to decline. Show me somebody who is at least willing to begin*. Then we can start talking about focus and how to sustain it. Otherwise, it's just vendor-pundits talking to themselves. Db *I've got two so far. Not bad out of 78,000.
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There won't be any gaps since NQ trades overnite. As for the "aligning", I assume you opened up the interactive bar chart that has the bar interval buttons (1m to 1D). If so, you can use the slider at the bottom to expand and contract the view. If you can't go back far enough using the 1m, switch to 15m or 60m to find whatever S/R and/or TRs you need. This saves having multiple charts open. Then you can contract it again to give yourself a trading view. You can also draw TLs and S/R lines from the macro view to avoid having to continue to expand and re-contract your view. Not bad for free. But being free, you may have to reload it now and then when it gets lazy about plotting every bar. When the time comes, you can subscribe to a more vigorous datafeed. Db
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BTW, if you're using something that doesn't trade overnight, don't include the gap in the chart you're working with. Otherwise, everything gets scrunched up and it's far more difficult to see what you're doing. This is what your Q chart ought to look like: Db
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Why not use ForexPros? That's what I've been using because I've wanted to use only free stuff for beginners. The data may not be dead accurate, but it's more than good enough for practice. And testing is done on hindsight charts. If one then wants to get serious and go into replay, that's another matter. But for the test drive, ForexPros is more than adequate. If you want help on navigation and setup, let me know. Db
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If you did this in RT, congratulations. This is exactly the way it ought to go. But is it QQQ that you want to trade? Or something else? Db
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I ask because I'm wondering what you do to prepare. Don't forget the basics. Before you think about where you want to go, you have to figure out where you are. Therefore, always start with the market. What has it done? Where has it left you? In this case, with the NQ, price had risen above the TR of the last two days but choked at the high made several days ago, returning to what might act as S, the high of the TR at 52 +/-. Rather than react to what appeared to be S, however, traders futzed around there for fifteen minutes prior to the open. At the open, price then plummeted to the midpoint of what had been the TR, at which point there was a nice and tradeable bounce. Re the TR, it doesn't matter if you use lines or boxes, it's all the same thing.
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Were you watching the NQ this morning? Db
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Actually, it is. W stresses that it's not the breaking or violation of a line or level or point that matters but the manner in which the break occurs. If, for example, price drops below support, this does not necessarily mean that the trader pegged support incorrectly. What is more important is what price does then. Does it shoot back up above support (or the TL or whatever) like it touched a hot stove? If so, then this not only reinforces the support level (or whatever) that the trader was using in the first place but also makes it that much stronger. So, yet again, it isn't levels or zones or points or lines or bars or candles or whatever else one is incorporating; it's how traders behave at these junctures. Db
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See the links in the Getting Started stickie. Db
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Remember that a break of a TL and especially of an SL or DL suggests only a change in the stride, not a reversal. Unless you are at or near S or R, there's no reason to assume a reversal. The break may be nothing more than a pause. Go over past trend days to see how often this is true, and at what level price truly does reverse. As to getting out, yes, you should, but not necessarily with the intention of reversing. You get out to minimize your risk and avoid fear triggers but also to reassess the situation. If you're at neither S nor R, there's no reason not to anticipate a continuation, and if the trend has been, for example, up, you can place your buystop above the pause so that you won't be stopped in if price instead falls. As to your questions: a) No. If you're using a TL to make these decisions, you probably won't be happy with the results. Given the way the TL is drawn, and given the angles of climactic price moves, it is likely that price will be some distance from the TL when it bottoms and prepares to reverse. This is what SLs are for. But there are other considerations. Are you at or near S? Was the downmove substantial enough to warrant a test? Or is a V reversal more likely? Are traders worn out when price hits these levels or are buyers ready to rally? Does price hit S hard and fast or does it just drift down as though it were settling in for a nap? b) As to the LSH, this is the old risk quandary. Remember that W considers the first bounce as the highest information risk/lowest price risk entry. The test carries less of the first and more of the second. Getting past the LSH carries the least information risk but the most price risk. So it's your choice. If you're going to trade at all, you have to carry one kind of risk or the other. If you're not prepared to do that, then leave it alone. Otherwise, be prepared to exit at the first sign of possible trouble and accept the fact that you may need to re-enter very quickly, perhaps immediately. Keep in mind, though, that if there's any sort of move in the offing, it's unlikely you'll have to try more than twice. If you do, the odds increase that you're looking at a potential TR being set up. If after all this these potential reversals still tie your stomach in knots, then you probably haven't studied enough of them in replay. These flutters of activity at S or R ought to elicit a Hmm, not an Oh shit. If the latter, then you haven't sufficiently planned what you're going to do in these instances. Once you have planned sufficiently, and truly accepted the risks involved, the turmoil disappears. Db
